Share

If it were not for Hungary’s obstinance, European countries would have been forced to accept refugees on a quota basis almost a decade ago. It was this persistent stubbornness to permit Brussels to manage the demographics of its member states that won Viktor Orban and Fidesz a lot of international support. It also earned them a tremendous amount of enmity on both sides of the pond. Hungary under Fidesz has been a thorn in the side of the transatlantic elites for almost two decades now.

That may be coming to an end as Magyars head to the polls this Sunday to vote for a new parliament. Fidesz has been in power since 2010, and have won every single election in that time quite handily, even winning supermajorities that permitted it to change the country’s constitution. Yet this time around they are trailing in the polls, and the opposition leader is not a bumbling fool like previous ones were. Fidesz is in danger of going into the opposition.

Contrary to hyperventilating liberals, Fidesz is not an extremist party. It is a party in the tradition of post-war European Christian Democracy. It is a classically conservative party, far, far away from any sort of right wing radicalism. At the same time, this lack of radicalism is what makes Fidesz’s time in government little more than a rearguard action against ever-entrenching liberal democracy. As Orban himself has repeatedly stated, Hungary is too small a country to be able to single-handedly turn Europe towards a new direction. It always needed assistance from either a larger partner member state, or to be part of a bloc of states. The Visegrad 4 could have been that bloc, but the war in Ukraine got in the way, and Poland and Hungary took two opposite routes since then.

Hungary could have weathered the storm of opposition that it drew due to its stance on migration, but its refusal to play ball with Brussels and Washington over the war in Ukraine might be its undoing. The Americans want to park that war onto the EU’s plate, and Hungary has long been a spoiler in these efforts. Despite JD Vance arriving in Budapest only a few short hours ago to try and boost Fidesz’s chances this weekend, Hungary’s independent approach to the war is a nuisance to American foreign policy planners. I personally believe that many in the Trump Administration would not be upset to see Orban leave the scene, despite public appearances to the contrary.

Many Hungarian voters want to punish Fidesz for an economic downturn resulting from the war in Ukraine and exacerbated by the EU withholding funds earmarked for the country. Where Orban could previously campaign on economic successes, this time around Fidesz cannot rely on that argument. Compounding matters is the perception that the party is corrupt. There is a lot of truth to this, and corruption (in most cases) needs to be punished.

I will now say something that might be construed as controversial: a lot of that corruption has been used to create a counter-elite that is patriotic, weakening the entrenched elite that has been held over since the communist era. Russia’s Putin was able to tame most of the rapacious oligarchy by threatening them with prison (or worse) if they refused to play ball. Viktor Orban could not do something similar because it would have violated every rule on human rights in the book. This meant that Fidesz would have to be creative in creating a counter-elite. The above is a very tough pill to swallow, especially because a lot of the corruption is purely selfish. This perception is now so widespread in Hungary that the government no longer has the benefit of the doubt.

Magyars are also experiencing fatigue with Fidesz in that the media war footing that their country has been on for a very long time now could only maintain high levels of support if the economy kept growing and benefits kept being felt by the public. Regime fatigue is a constant in politics across the globe, and Fidesz should have addressed this by bringing in more new and younger faces. Instead, an perceived ossification has set in, and like all people, Hungary’s voting public is fickle.

Can Fidesz pull off a miracle and win one more time? It’s not looking good for them right now as all the stars have aligned to force them out of power after almost an entire generation in power.

Leave a comment